What is trade marketing?
Trade marketing is the set of activities a brand uses to influence demand one step up the distribution chain: retailers, distributors, wholesalers, and the retail associates who work for them. The goal is to make it easier and more profitable for channel partners to stock, display, train on, and sell your products.
Trade marketing sits between brand marketing (aimed at consumers) and sales (aimed at accounts). It owns the point-of-sale materials, retailer training, co-op advertising, SPIFFs, trade-show presence, and the data brands share with retailers to justify shelf space.
What a modern trade marketing budget funds
A typical CPG or sporting-goods trade marketing budget splits across five buckets: (1) retailer-facing promotions and co-op, (2) retail execution / merchandising, (3) associate training and education, (4) sales incentives / SPIFFs, and (5) frontline research and market intelligence.
Historically each bucket had its own vendor. Today, brands increasingly consolidate into sell-through enablement platforms that run training, incentives, audits, surveys, and consumer cashback on the same stack — because the underlying audience (retail associates) is the same.